Does conventional wisdom make economic sense? In many cases, it doesn't. This blog will question the economic efficiency and market viability of popular "solutions" to today's problems. Copyright 2011.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Quantifying Phone Tag

How much does playing phone tag cost your business? More than you think! You can get your costs under control with some simple tools.

For my quant friends, how do you measure the cost of phone tag? It is really quite simple. Assume your estimated hourly rate is $50. Each day you spend one hour on the phone, and only 50% of the calls were conversations. The cost of non-productive calls is $25 a day. 260 days times $25 equals $6500 per year, per employee! Ouch!

RingCentral utilizes your internet connection to handle the call hand offs. It allows you to keep a central number, including area code, and then forwards the call to one of a set of numbers you provide. Additionally, RingCentral also provides similar products for fax solutions.

Not to be out done, Google is soon to offer a service called Google Voice. Although it is only available by invite only (?), it is said to offer call forwarding, screening, voice mail, etc. It appears this will be a "free" service, but I don't have anything definitive as of 01 September 2009.

From Google:

Google Voice is a service that gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail that is easy as email, and many enhanced calling features like call blocking and screening, voicemail transcripts, call conferencing, international calls, and more.

Clearly, missed phone calls are costing companies thousands of dollars a year, as well as lost productivity, lost business opportunities, and general frustration. Fortunately, with products from RingCentral and Google, businesses can better manage these costs.